Nokia launches three new phones – but can it stop its market share falling?

Smartphone giant Nokia will launch three new business-oriented smartphones this year as it attempts to claw back market share lost to rivals Apple, HTC and Google, with the company saying it will learn from mistakes and start innovating in a rapidly changing industry.

But the announcements come during a tumultuous period for the tech giant, with a new chief executive snapped up from Microsoft planning a totally new strategy for the company and board members falling to the wayside.

Nokia executive vice-president Niklas Savander took the stage at the Nokia World Conference in London overnight to announce the C6, C7 and E7 models – gadgets it believes will make Nokia more competitive in the high-end smartphone market.

Savander admitted the company’s mistakes, saying it hadn’t kept up with its rivals. The company’s misendeavours can’t be ignored – shares have fallen about 60% since the iPhone was released in 2007, and has cut prices in order to slow the erosion of its market share.

Earlier this year the company said sales for the June quarter were up by just 1% to $US12 billion, with market share falling to 33% from 35% in 2009. But now, Savander says that trend will change.

“I recognise that we haven’t been as competitive as we want to be in smartphones, but that’s about to change,” he said. “Today we shift into high gear in Nokia’s fight back to smartphone leadership.”

He also hit back at Google and Apple, who have attempted to challenge each other with claims over 200,000 customers are activating Android or iOS devices every day. Savander said Nokia’s customer base was far bigger.

“In the past quarter people bought far more Nokia smartphones than Apple and Android combined. On average, people buy 260,000 new Nokia smartphones every day – that’s more smartphones sales than any other company by far, period.”

“We’re not going to apologise for the fact that we’re not Apple or Google or Samsung or anybody else. We’re Nokia,” he said.
The first phone, dubbed the E7, is actually a slightly reshaped version of the N8. It features a four-inch display, a slightly bigger body and is only 12.9mm thick. It also comes pre-loaded with a number of business-focussed apps including Mail for Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes and Quickoffice.

One of the bigger drawcards is the eight-megapixel camera, which is also capable of recording and playing back 720p video, similar to the newest versions of the iPhone and iPod touch.

The C6 model is much more of a business-oriented phone. It features a 3.2-inch touchscreen with a 360×640 resolution, and comes with internal memory of 340MB with a microSD slot capable of up to 32GB. A USB2.0 microUSB connector is also installed.

The phone features a camera with eight megapixels, capable of pictures of up to 3266×2450 pixels. Nokia claims the gadget features talk time of over four hours on a 3G network.

Meanwhile, the C7 features many of the same capabilities as the C6 but comes with a larger screen and higher storage capacity. In fact, the company is calling it the “sleekest, smoothest device in the world”.

But both phones have a secret weapon – social networking. The C6 and C7 models are integrated with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and are designed to receive updates on the fly. Several features integrate social media throughout the phone’s software.

The Ovi apps platform will also be preloaded on both devices, with a slightly updated user interface and operator billing procedure. Some apps including maps features will be updated as well.

Another new feature is the addition of an anti-glare ClearBlack Display. Nokia claims the new display providers a higher contrast ratio and more dynamic images with lower power consumption.

“The new devices, which are tightly integrated with enhanced Ovi services and apps, reinforce Nokia’s vision of a mobile industry that is increasingly being defined by socially connected, location-based devices and experiences,” Savander said.

But the new handsets come at a time when analysts question whether Nokia can survive increased competition and a shake-up among its executive structure.
The company has continued to rely on Symbian, an operating system classified by several analysts as outdated and inferior to iOS and Android. A new operating system being designed by the company failed to make an appearance.

Research firm IDC recently predicted Symbian’s market share would fall to 32.9% in 2014 from its current rate of about 41%.

But while it may still maintain a dominant position in four years, IDC predicts rival Android’s market share will jump from its current rate of 16.3% to 24.6%.

Those predictions also come as Nokia recently announced it had replaced former chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo with Microsoft veteran Stephen Elop. Kallasvuo had been criticised for failing to keep up with competition was blamed for the company’s falling share price.

But just yesterday, executive vice-president of mobile solutions Anssi Vanjoki also announced he would be stepping down, while reports from the Wall Street Journal confirm chairman Jorma Ollila may resign in 2012 as the company pursues a new strategy.